The sea king will eulogize his daughter, ingest the very last of his ríkifjor, and gamble the fate of his people to gain the power he needs to sustain himself.
I need to warn Runa. It’s a difficult proposition from here but not impossible.
I stir the cauldron, picturing the girl in my mind’s eye.“Líta.”
The liquid within shimmers, steam rising into my pores as my magic searches for her. It doesn’t allow me to communicate—it doesn’t even allow me to hear a thing, not without an added token like the tentacle the sea king wears. But hopefully, as it was in Niklas’s chambers, context will be enough.
The steam parts, and Runa’s form appears. She’schanged clothing, into peasant linens. Her hair is clean, the blood washed away, the strawberry blond warm in the glow of candles and firelight.
With her are three women—two young, one old enough to be the mother of any of the others—and a boy no older than the dead king.
Wait. No.
Three witches and a wizard.
The women stand in a line, their profiles patterned in light and dark from a small fire lit in a fireplace. Squinting, I inspect Runa’s hands. Nik’s ring is still on her thumb. Good. In the same hand is a stone. A wave of familiarity and loss flows over me when she holds it up to the lamp. Its elegant, purple tone glimmers in the light.
An amethyst.
Runa holds the stone, says a command, and her left arm flashes into wildfire.
Arms up, the three repeat the command and... fail. The two young girls produce exactly nothing but the command, while a few sparks fly off the older woman’s arm.
The wizard participates as a cheering section, while lounging in a rocking chair, spinning what look to be blades of grass into daisy after daisy.
After a second failed attempt in which they all try switching to stones of other sizes, one of the girls rushes over to the boy. Without warning, she tosses the daisiesstraight from his lap into the fireplace and yanks the boy over to try the spell.
As the girl settles again next to him, her laugh changes her face enough that it’s suddenly obvious why she looks familiar.
She’s Niklas’s bride.
The King of Havnestad, scion of the witch-hunting Øldenburgs, was married for a few short hours to an actual witch.
Now, that’s interesting.
Added to my panic over the sea king’s move to violence is a sudden pang of envy. In another world, another time, I could’ve been the witch married to an Øldenburg king. Or, just as plausibly, if Tante Hansa hadn’t spent so much time protecting me from how the world saw us, I could’ve had my own little coven and spent a night practicing spells with our kind. I wouldn’t have had to hide my true self.
Or, maybe, in another story, at this same moment, I could be an old lady in another cabin, teaching other witches spells by the light of the fire. Instead, I’m the old lady who has sentient trees instead of cats and spends her days talking mostly to herself.
I turn back to my cauldron. The witches line up again, this time with both arms out in a blocking motion, ready for another spell.
“They could learn so much more from you, Evie. Theydon’t know what they’ll meet when the sea king comes. They’re not going to be ready, especially if they can’t even pull off a simple wildfire spell. They need you; you can show them.”
I nod but say, “The best we can do is warn them.” Then, to my cauldron, I say,“Heitr.”
The fire beneath it shifts from a dusky red to the clear blue of dawn, the pot alive with luscious heat. From safekeeping in my cave, I retrieve a hair from each of the sea king’s remaining water-bound daughters and toss them into the cauldron. As the cauldron trembles in a rolling boil, I give my command to the universe. Exactly as the sea king did from his study.
“Koma, Eydis. Koma, Ola. Koma, Signy.”
The girls appear within an hour. They swim three across, all of them with their arms wrapped tightly over their chests. Fear and anger roll off them in alternating waves, and I don’t blame them, though I find it misplaced.
“You have some nerve,” the oldest, Eydis, spits at me as they come to rest beyond my cauldron. I’ve silenced Anna yet again, and I face them on my tentacle throne. I meet her fire with a colorless face—we don’t have the time to fight.
My nonreaction clearly annoys this girl, her eyebrows gathering sharply, her rosebud lips scrunched as if she’s tasted something sour. Though scrubbed clean for sleep,her cheekbones shine with excess diamond dust—there must never be a moment when this girl doesn’t glitter.
“Why on earth did you call us here like this? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for us to leave the castle right now? Since we returned without Runa and were relieved of our hair, Father has us locked within the north tower. Locked in our own home! He’s so fearful we’d come to visit you again and all end up on land, chasing our sisters to our own death.”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “You came, though, didn’t you?”
